Barry Gordon (born December 21, 1948) is an American film and television actor and political talk show host and producer. He was the longest-serving president of the Screen Actors Guild, having served from 1988 to 1995.
Gordon was born in Brookline, Massachusetts. He began his professional life at age three; in his TV debut, he won second place on Ted Mack's Amateur Hour singing Johnnie Ray's Cry . At six, Gordon recorded Nuttin' For Christmas, still one of the top-selling Christmas recordings of all time. He was the youngest performer ever to hit the Billboard Hot 100, when that song hit #6 in 1955.
As a child star, Gordon also appeared on The Jackie Gleason Show, The Jack Benny Program, and Star Time with Benny Goodman. Barry Gordon also appeared as Humberto in an episode of the NBC sitcom Sally , starring Joan Caulfield, and as Chopper in ABC's Leave It to Beaver Episode 119: "Beaver's House Guest".
When he was thirteen, Gordon debuted on Broadway, as Nick in Herb Gardner's A Thousand Clowns , a role that earned him a Tony Award nomination. He later reprised this role in the film version opposite Jason Robards and Martin Balsam, in 1965. The film gave him "introducing" billing but he had actually been in several films prior, most notably his actual film debut in 1956's The Girl Can't Help It as a newspaper boy in which he uttered the classic line after seeing Jayne Mansfield, "If that's a girl, I don't know what my sister is."
Primarily as a character actor, Gordon became a familiar face in numerous feature films and television shows. In the 1970s, Gordon appeared in the Barney Miller spin-off Fish , starring Abe Vigoda. In the last two seasons of the television series All in the Family , then known as Archie Bunker's Place, Gordon had the recurring role of Gary Rabinowitz, Archie's Jewish accountant. Gordon also had notable guest-starring roles on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as Nava, a Ferengi businessman, and on Star Trek: Voyager as Ardon Broht, an alien publisher. More recently Gordon has appeared as the Rabbi in Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Gordon is also a voice actor. His most notable voice roles were Donatello and Bebop in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles , and as Razor/Jake Clawson in SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron (1993). Gordon's voice was also featured in other animated series, such as Jabberjaw, The Kid Superpower Hour with Shazam!, Mighty Orbots, The Snorks. Gordon also provided the voice of the Quik Bunny / NesQuik Bunny character in television commercials for Nestlé Quik/NesQuik.
In his mid-thirties, Gordon returned to school; he graduated summa cum laude as a political science major from California State University, Los Angeles; and he went on to Loyola Law School, receiving his J.D. in 1991.
Gordon became the longest-serving president of the Screen Actors Guild, holding the office for seven years (one year longer than either Charlton Heston or Ronald Reagan).
In 1998, Gordon was the Democratic Party nominee for the United States Congress from the Pasadena, California area. He surprised political pundits, of both parties, by coming within three points of unseating the Republican Party incumbent, Rep. James Rogan, who went on to become one of the managers in the impeachment of President Bill Clinton and subsequently lost his seat.
In 2004, when the local Air America Radio affiliate in Los Angeles went off the air, for a then-unspecified period of time, Gordon started a live, call-in progressive political talk show on Pasadena's cable access channel 56. It continues to be cablecast and webcast live, with Flash video available on demand.
In 2005, Gordon hosted a weekly talk show heard on KRLA Radio in Los Angeles, California.
In 2006 and early 2007, Gordon hosted Barry Gordon From Left Field , a weekly talk show broadcast throughout the 25th largest U.S. radio market -- the San Bernardino/Riverside region of Southern California -- on KCAA Radio, in Loma Linda, California. With live streams and podcast archives, the show was especially notable for featuring nationally known guests, including senators, congressmen, bestselling authors, and entertainment figures.
In 2008, Gordon debuted his daily Internet talk show, Left Talk, on BlogTalkRadio.
Since 2007, Gordon has taught courses in politics and the media at the California State University, Los Angeles.
References
- ^ "Episode dated 1984-12-15". American Top 40 . Syndication (through ABC-Watermark).
External links
- Barry Gordon presidents of the Screen Actors Guild
- Barry Gordon at the Allmusic
- Barry Gordon at the Internet Movie Database
- Barry Gordon at the Internet Broadway Database
- Barry Gordon at the Internet off-Broadway Database
- Barry Gordon at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
- Pasadena Community Network , with live streams of "NewsRap"
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Actor and congressional candidate Barry Gordon hosts progressive political talk shows on the Internet (Left Talk), radio (Left Field), & cable TV (NewsRap).
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